Robert G. Jaharias, a retired Westinghouse Electric Corp. supervisor who enjoyed collecting and driving vintage automobiles, died Friday of heart failure at his Sykesville home. He was 83. Born in Frederick, Robert George Jaharias moved with his family in 1931 to Baltimore and several years later to Essex. While attending Kenwood High School, Mr. Jaharias began working at Westinghouse. After graduation in 1947, he joined the company full time, eventually being promoted to installation supervisor.

Joel R. Bailey, a longtime Baltimore County public school English teacher who also coached basketball, died Friday of complications from a stroke at Gilchrist Hospice Care. He was 77. "The first thing, Joel really liked his students. ... He enjoyed interacting with them. He was a gentleman," said William L. McIntyre, who grew up with and attended elementary, middle and high schools with Mr. Bailey. "He was the same way in basketball. He was a good teaching coach. He communicated well with his students and he respected them, and they respected him," said Mr. McIntyre, a retired Eastern Technical High School social studies teacher.

Downtown Baltimore yesterday retreated to the year 1954 while a film crew for "Liberty Heights" commandeered Redwood Street, filling it with dozens of vintage cars, neon lights, gabardine suits, hats with veils and cameras on rolling tracks.Traffic congealed into a nonmoving glob, but few drivers complained as they caught a sideways view of star Joe Mantegna standing in a reconstructed world they had forgotten about or never knew."It was a little overcast this morning," said director Barry Levinson.

Robert G. Jaharias, a retired Westinghouse Electric Corp. supervisor who enjoyed collecting and driving vintage automobiles, died Friday of heart failure at his Sykesville home. He was 83. Born in Frederick, Robert George Jaharias moved with his family in 1931 to Baltimore and several years later to Essex. While attending Kenwood High School, Mr. Jaharias began working at Westinghouse. After graduation in 1947, he joined the company full time, eventually being promoted to installation supervisor.

Once a week, members of the Lost in the 50s Custom Car Club cruise their pre-1965 vintage cars to a parking lot in Pasadena to admire one another's wheels and listen to oldies.And once a year they raise money for the Anne Arundel County Special Olympics.On Oct. 23, they plan to drive their Fords, Chevrolets and Cadillacs -- and even a 1927 Sterling -- to the Motor Vehicle Administration parking lot in Glen Burnie for their second annual benefit car show.Admission to the show is free, but car owners are charged an entry fee.Judging starts at noon.

VINTAGE CARSMore than 500 antique and classic cars -- all buffed and trimmed for being seen -- are featured in the Antique and Classic Car Show this weekend at the Baltimore Convention Center and Festival Hall. Organizers expect to attract 30,000 people to the two-day event, which includes an auction, an antique auto-parts mart and, courtesy of a vendor, giving away a 1955 Mercury Montclair. Also on display will be former basketball great's Wilt Chamberlain's custom-built 1971 Maserati Ghibli.

A small crowd - many of them drawn more by the cars than the stars - watched as filming continued yesterday in downtown Baltimore for My One and Only. The movie, scheduled for release next summer, stars Renee Zellweger as a 1950s-era divorced mom seeking a new, and rich, husband. The film crew was at Mount Vernon Place, where many of the vintage cars being used in the movie - 84 are involved in scenes this week alone - were drawing more gawkers than Zellweger as she repeatedly exited the Washington Apartments in an eggs-and-cream colored 1950s-era suit.

State fire officials are investigating the cause of a two-alarm Elkridge fire that destroyed a two-car garage containing vintage cars Friday.The early morning fire at the 6300 block of Woodburn Avenue seriously damaged two cars in the garage, a 1955 Chevrolet and a 1932 Chevrolet, worth at least $20,000 each, according to Battalion Chief Donald Howell of the county fire and rescue services.The fire, which started in the garage, also destroyed more than 100 model cars, tools and and welding equipment, causing at least $125,000 in damages.

Car racing fans in Maryland have heard this pitch before.Someone wants to build a major racetrack in the state, a track in Havre de Grace that could bring professional motor sports events within an hour's drive of downtown Baltimore.This time, says developer Dick Rothman, the prospect is not just a pipe dream."I've been a land developer for the last 25 years," said Rothman, president of Suburban Homes in Baltimore. "This is not a field of dreams. We're businessmen, and we have a really good project that everyone can benefit from."

It's long been known that one surefire way to draw a crowd in Harford County is to hold a vintage car and hot rod rally and show. Saturday was no exception. Under bright blue skies, scores of beautiful cars and hundreds of people converged on Jarrett's Field in Jarrettsville for Romancing the Chrome, a show put together by the Harford County Public Library and the Jarrettsville Lions Club. The show was organized to help promote the exhibit "Cars: A Harford County Love Affair" that opened April 12 at the Jarrettsville library and runs through May 19. The show also provided a perfect prelude to the annual Night Out at the Jarrettsville Library that evening which featured an appearance by Earl Swift, author of "The Big Roads," a history of the interstate highway system.

A small crowd - many of them drawn more by the cars than the stars - watched as filming continued yesterday in downtown Baltimore for My One and Only. The movie, scheduled for release next summer, stars Renee Zellweger as a 1950s-era divorced mom seeking a new, and rich, husband. The film crew was at Mount Vernon Place, where many of the vintage cars being used in the movie - 84 are involved in scenes this week alone - were drawing more gawkers than Zellweger as she repeatedly exited the Washington Apartments in an eggs-and-cream colored 1950s-era suit.

John Neal Packard, a retired engineering executive and collector of vintage Packard automobiles, died of leukemia Jan. 11 at Upper Chesapeake Medical Center. The Fallston resident was 70. Mr. Packard was born in Bangor, Maine, and raised in Ashland, Va., where his father was a faculty member at Randolph-Macon College. He earned a bachelor's degree in physics from Randolph-Macon in 1957 and a master's degree from West Virginia University in 1959. He began his career in the late 1950s at Glenn L. Martin Co. in Middle River and later worked for 33 years at Goddard Space Flight Center as a civilian employee of Man Tech International.

Leonard McGrady boasts he knows more about the Nash Healey than even the man who built the legendary sports cars in the 1950s. Who could argue? Inside McGrady's barn on a sprawling estate in Aberdeen, he has collected every Nash Healey he could find over the past three decades. That amounts to 80 so far, a third of those known to still be in existence and almost one-sixth of the 506 of them that were ever built. Over there is the X-7, the only Nash Healey built with a power top that would roll down with the push of a button on the dashboard.

Gary Klein loves and loathes his classic car. He devotes half his garage, hours of free time and a good chunk of change to his yellow convertible 1975 TR6. It's British, and it's his little metal baby. The car's design - the straight lines and the boxy shell - drew him in. That's his favorite part of the car. "It's the shape," Klein said. "It's been described as a man's car, and I guess I must have fallen into that trap. It attracted me." After restoring it, Klein reached out to other British-car owners in the area.

Back-seat smoochers take note: The Bel Air Drive-In Theatre has shown its last feature. For the first time in 53 years, Maryland's oldest drive-in will not open in April, typically the start of the drive-in season. The theater's year-round Big M restaurant served its last double-decker burger and crinkle fries in the fall. The Bel Air, known for letting patrons arrive in pajamas with their own picnic dinner, could no longer afford the rent off Route 22 in Churchville. "Business is business, hon. Money is money," part-owner Karen Zellman, 47, said in a quavering voice.

Back-seat smoochers take note: The Bel Air Drive-In Theatre has shown its last feature. For the first time in 53 years, Maryland's oldest drive-in will not open in April, typically the start of the drive-in season. The theater's year-round Big M restaurant served its last double-decker burger and crinkle fries in the fall. The Bel Air, known for letting patrons arrive in pajamas with their own picnic dinner, could no longer afford the rent off Route 22 in Churchville. "Business is business, hon. Money is money," part-owner Karen Zellman, 47, said in a quavering voice.

MASSEY - The chipped white barn where Tony Monzo spent his childhood milking cows is now a home for the husks of vintage cars whose owners have the money to make them new again and the desire to do it right. That's why they call Tony. In the past 20 years he has restored a hundred cars from the barn-turned-garage on his family's old farm on the Eastern Shore, earning a reputation for his attention to detail. Each job can take up to six months and cost up to $60,000. No one blinks when they hear that, he says.

MASSEY - The chipped white barn where Tony Monzo spent his childhood milking cows is now a home for the husks of vintage cars whose owners have the money to make them new again and the desire to do it right. That's why they call Tony. In the past 20 years he has restored a hundred cars from the barn-turned-garage on his family's old farm on the Eastern Shore, earning a reputation for his attention to detail. Each job can take up to six months and cost up to $60,000. No one blinks when they hear that, he says.

I've collected a gargage full of observations about the cars driven in our city. At the outset, let me say that I've not been behind the wheel of a car since 1967. I got my license in Glen Burnie that spring and pretty much hung up the keys shortly thereafter. I am no automobile expert, but I do have eyes and get around our city a fair amount. I often play a game, spotting vehicles that I consider perfect Baltimore cars. In my judgment, these babies are old, have been run hard and show no signs of quitting.